


Good Left Undone

by Krixel



Category: Bakuten Shoot Beyblade, Beyblade
Genre: Alternate Universe, Explicit Language, F/M, It's the Blitz Boys, Mafia AU, No Beta, Violence, they cuss a lot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:01:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28818201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krixel/pseuds/Krixel
Summary: After escaping the twisted rule of his mentor, Tala establishes a resistance to bring down the man, and finally ensure freedom for himself and his brothers. Unfortunately, reckless decisions and unpredictable side effects hinder his attempt to cut the cord for a final time, and an innocent girl gets caught in the crossfire.
Relationships: Boris Kuznetsov | Bryan Kuznetsov/Mariam, Yuri Ivanov | Tala Valkov/Original Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2





	Good Left Undone

**Author's Note:**

> So... I've teased this on tumblr for a while, and if I don't put Chapter one out now, I'm going to pick it to death. Anyway, this is my first Beyblade work in... oh... 12 years, so apologies if I'm still kicking the rust off. Special thanks to Gems, who sat and listened to me complain about this through most of the writing process.

Trey used to love the snow. It’d been rare enough in her hometown that life halted with its arrival. The tumbling white flakes, sparkling in the muted midday light, charmed and delighted everyone. But she remembered the quiet. An ethereal sort of peace settled with the first blanket of fresh snow, and for those precious few moments, she’d be safe. These days, it just meant dirty tile and a rush on coffee.

“One more polar bear,” Delia called from the register. “Extra shot. Seated.”

“Got it.”

Trey’s fingers skimmed over the disposable cups, blindly groping for porcelain as she kept her eye on the brewing coffee pot. She’d just closed her fingers around the handle of a mug when the side door to the kitchen swung open. Katya, the proprietor of Katya’s Cakes & Coffee, emerged holding a long pan. She was an older woman, with salted auburn hair, and a stern face. She paused in the doorway, surveyed the barely contained chaos inside her coffee house, and turned on her heel to return to the kitchen.

The queue stretched to the door, its end a huddled host of people jostling together to avoid the biting air that swept in with each new customer. Trey felt like she’d made a hundred drinks in the last thirty minutes, but above her the order screen blinked red. She nudged another mug beneath the espresso machine and used her other hand to pour coffee into one of the paper cups. Outside, the snow settled in for the afternoon.

The kitchen door opened again. Katya had abandoned her flour striped apron and was rolling up the sleeves of her burgundy sweater. She pointed to Trey. “I’ll make drinks,” she said, the staccato drum of her accent sharpening the order. “You help Delia with the customers.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Trey finished the decorative drizzle on a cappuccino, slid the drink onto the receiving counter beside a frosted cookie, and punched her ID code into the second register. “I can help the next customer,” she said, trying to pitch her voice over the din of chatter and roaring machines.

The next hour blurred into a coffee induced nightmare as Trey tapped in orders for Americanos and bumble bees, macchiatos with monkey muffins, and an army’s worth of the Thursday special. She handed off a brown sack of pastries to the customer in front of her and blinked when no one replaced him. The cafe buzzed with conversation, most of the seats and tables full, but they’d cleared the line. She glanced at Delia. Her coworker stood with her hip braced on the counter and wore a dazed expression. Her brown eyes met Trey’s, and she grinned. “Did we make it?”

Trey looked back towards the empty queue. “I think -” the bell above the door chimed, and her shoulders slumped. “Never mind.”

He stepped into the cafe like the doors were a magazine cover, dusting snow off his shoulders and shaking out his hair. Supple black leather skimmed his long, slender fingers as he peeled off his gloves, and he tucked them into the pockets of his white overcoat. Wiping his boots off on the rug, he lifted his head. His lips twitched when he caught Trey staring.

Striking was the best word she’d decided on for him. Well, striking and narcissistic. Model pretty, with sculpted features that bordered on effeminate, Tala was a study in colors. Pale, fresh snow fall skin, with the cold blue winter sky eyes to match, and hair an obnoxious shade of fire engine red that shouldn’t suit anyone. It suited him. Styled to be messy, the practiced disarray was just a little too polished for actual after sex hair, but the connection was pointed. 

He was a Thursday regular and had been for Trey’s three years of employment. Delia’s elbow took up residence in Trey’s kidney, and she grunted, nearly toppling sideways. “He’s here,” Delia said, in what Trey assumed was supposed to be a whisper. 

She couldn’t fault the other girl. Delia had started at the cafe a couple of months earlier, and a minimum six-month infatuation with Tala was practically a rite of passage for new employees.

“Pick your jaw up, girl. He’s pretty, not blind,” Katya said, passing behind the two of them as she headed back for the kitchen. “And tell him I have fresh scones, soon.”

Trey nodded in affirmation as Tala strolled up the open aisle. He slipped his coat off his shoulders as he walked, an innate grace in his movements, and draped the white wool over his arm. A tailored blue button down skimmed his lithe torso and made his eyes pop, because they needed more help, and pressed black slacks clothed the long line of his legs. The only discrepancy in his style were heavy boots in place of loafers, polished but well-worn. 

Trey didn’t know much about Tala, except that he was an executive developer for some high-tech security firm, and that he was running late for his usual Thursday tea. Tala tended to slip in between the morning and afternoon rush, when there was less of a crowd. He stopped in front of Trey’s register, but shot a wink towards Delia, who flushed scarlet and quickly turned to stock cups. His resulting conspiratorial grin at Trey made her roll her eyes. “Be nice,” she said.

“I thought I was.” Tala propped his elbow on the half-wall barrier and rested his chin on his fist. “And how are you doing today, love?”

“You’re late,” Trey said, instead of answering. “And Katya said she’d have fresh scones for you soon.”

“Ah, she’s a dear,” he said. “But, I’m afraid I can’t wait today. As you so graciously pointed out, I am late.”

Trey arched a brow, but didn’t comment. “You want your usual?”

“Hmm, not today.” Tala glanced at his phone as it buzzed. “A chai latte, I think.”

“Everything all right?”

Tala was still staring at his phone. His brow furrowed. “Shit,” he muttered, and then he blinked and looked up. “Sorry, what?”

Trey shook her head, disposable cup in hand as she started on his latte. “Nothing,” she said. “Just asked if you were all right?”

“Perfect,” Tala said, tucking his phone into his pocket and reclaiming his practiced smile. “Couldn’t be better.”

When she’d first met Tala, Trey had been as guilty as Delia in falling for his impeccable charm and imperial face, but then she’d noticed the moments. They were subtle, a rarity that he was oh so careful to control, but Trey recognized them. She saw them like the rocket red glare of a warning flare, because someone else had taught her what happened when she didn’t.

Most days, Tala’s veneer was polished porcelain. He wielded charisma and Hollywood handsome as his sword and shield but, on the bad days, his eyes betrayed him. They were the only genuine thing about him, and Trey hated them the most. “Whipped cream?” She asked.

“No, thanks.”

Trey nodded and pressed the black plastic lid onto the paper cup. She slid it across the counter just as Katya emerged from the kitchen with a saucer of scones. The woman’s gray eyes lit on the to-go cup and narrowed. “In a rush today, lastochka?”

Another dark cloud rumbled across his eyes, but Tala held his smile and shrugged. “Places to go, people to see,” he said. “You know how it is, milaya.”

Katya clicked her tongue as she reached for a paper bag, dumping the pile of scones into it. “Don’t you point that flattery at me, little bird, I know you better.” Katya dropped the bag of pastries on the counter beside his tea. “You’re up to something.”

“I’m always up to something,” Tala said, his smile trending towards wicked. “It’s part of my charm.”

Swiping the tea and scones from the counter, Tala ducked back in time to avoid Katya’s swat. The woman scowled at him. “Whatever you’re up to, lastochka,” she said, “take care.”

“I always do.” With another grin and a final wave, Tala was out the door and back on the snowy streets.

“That boy,” Katya said, more to herself than either of the girls. “One day he is going to find trouble he can’t get out of.” 

Katya picked up the empty saucer and shook her head. With the rush over, and their wayward patron gone, she returned to the kitchen. Trey exchanged a glance with Delia. “That was all kinds of weird, right?”

“A little,” Delia said. “But those two are always kind of weird with each other.”

Trey tilted her head, conceding the point. Looking around to ensure another rush wasn’t about to storm the door, she logged out of her register. “I’m going to restock,” she said. “If I’m not back and it gets crazy, yell at me.”

The rest of the day passed in fits and starts, a steady trickle of customers darting in between the rushes. With an hour left before close, things had finally slowed to only a few lingering customers, and Katya had offered to let one of the girls head home as the roads worsened.

“You go ahead,” Trey said as she watched Delia glance out the door to the icy streets.

The other girl bit her lip. “Are you sure?” She asked. “I can stay.”

Trey shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. I just live up the road, and you haven’t closed by yourself before,” she said. “I could use the hours, anyway.”

Delia beamed, already edging towards the door to the stockroom. “Thank you,” she said. “Next time, I’ll stay.”

Trey smiled and waved her off, wishing her a good night, then braced her shoulder against the wall and eyed the mop bucket. That would have to wait until she locked the doors for the evening. Grabbing a sleeve of cups from beneath the counter, Trey set about stocking the front. 

A few last-minute customers darted in for drinks, but as the last straggler wandered back into the cold, Trey turned the lock. She’d just ducked back beneath the counter when Katya emerged from the back, coat buttoned and purse over one shoulder. Trey’s stomach sank.

“I must go,” Katya said, the corners of her mouth turning down in apology. “My son is sick and cannot participate in his after-school program. If I had known, I would not have sent Delia home.”

Trey mustered a smile and shook her head. It wasn’t like she’d had any plans beyond returning to her apartment, throwing in a microwave meal, and collapsing on her couch. “No worries,” she said. “I’ll take care of everything.”

Katya’s expression remained apologetic, hesitation creeping into her features. “Thursdays,” she started. “I usually do inventory.”

Ah. Trey smothered her sigh. She’d helped Katya with inventory before and had done a rough job of it on her own a couple of times. “I can do it,” she said.

Katya’s face relaxed into a relieved smile. “You are simply an angel.”

Trey offered an awkward shrug. “It’s no big deal.”

With another shower of gratitude, Katya headed for the back, assuring Trey she’d lock the door on her way out. Trey waited until the back door slammed, and then her shoulders slumped. She glanced at the wet, muddy footprints on the floor, the smears of fingerprints and icing on the pastry case, and tried not to think about the stock room behind her. “Right,” she said. “This is going to take all night.”

_____

Music blared from her headphones as Trey swiped the cloth across the glass display case. She scrubbed at a stubborn smudge, nodding along to the pounding drums, and didn’t notice the door opening behind her. 

Shifting on her feet to shimmy sideways another few inches, she nearly overbalanced. With a yelp, she pressed her hand into the cabinet beside her, eyes crossing at the corner of counter inches away from her nose. She eased her head back and readjusted, then swung her head back to her task. 

In the case's reflection, the shadows shifted in the door behind her, and she froze. Her fingers curled into the cleaning rag while her other hand tugged her left ear bud free. 

“Katya?” Hunching her shoulders, she ducked her head to clear the low rim of the pastry case, and sat back on her heels. “Is that you? Did you forget something?”

She patted her hand along the polished counter above her, searching for her phone, and frowned when it remained stubbornly absent. Her music cut off.

“Katya is gone? No. Don’t stand up, just answer my question.”

The voice was soft, little more than a murmur, but she recognized the accent. It was subtle, more polished than Katya’s harsher speech, but she heard him skirt around the vowels, pause the barest moment over the D. A face came unbidden to her mind. She’d seen him just a few hours ago. “Tala?”

He muttered a violent string of words, curses she assumed, though she didn’t speak Russian, and then she saw the flash of a white jacket in the corner of her eye as he leaned against the register. “Stupid, clever girl,” he said. “Stand up and turn around.”

Letting out a breath, the shivering fear in her chest solidified to anger. “How did you even get in - ” she broke off at the sight of him.

He was still dressed in the tailored black slacks and blue button down from earlier, but the red stain spreading across the shoulder of his white wool overcoat was new. As was the gun in his hand. He pointed it at her with a sigh. “Oh, Trey,” he said. “Bad luck. Katya was supposed to be here, not you.”

Trey held her hands up, palms forward. She took a step away from him, but the edge of the counter burrowed into her lower back and stalled her retreat. “I don’t understand,” she said, trying not to stutter under the roaring return of her fear.

While she’d have never claimed to know Tala, unless his preference for strong black tea, and a ravenous need of raspberry scones counted, but he’d always affected kindness. Well, charm, at any rate, and he was a phenomenal tipper. 

Those startling eyes of his were at once amused and mocking, but with an intelligence too serrated to be beautiful. Staring at her now, only the sharpness remained. “You have two options,” he said. “Either do exactly as I say, and live a little longer, or I shoot you now.”

“I -” She paused as the words threatened to choke her and licked her lips. “I’d rather not get shot.”

“I never said I wouldn’t shoot you later,” he said, but lowered the gun.

“I’ll take my chances with an extended timeline,” she said, and then bit her lip against the curved edge of her words.

This wasn’t their usual verbal sparring match, where he flirted with literally everything but the bran muffins, and she dismissed him with a few playful barbs that wouldn’t get her fired. She was out of step for this dance, her entire world sliding off kilter in the reflection of a pastry case. 

Tala ignored the words and pointed to the open door of the storeroom. “Get in there.”

Not ready to risk his ire seconds after he lowered the gun, she shuffled into the room without complaint. The dim evening lights bathed bags of flour, sugar, and coffee beans in a fiery glow, and she jumped at every flicker and shadow as she walked further into the room. She cast her gaze around for something, anything, she could use as a weapon, but she didn’t like her chances of wielding cherry pie filling against his firearm. 

Come on, think, she berated herself. And remembered the blood. The spreading patches painting his left side, and his stiff, rigid posture. He was hurt, and she was small, quick, familiar with the layout of the back room.

Behind her, the gun clicked. “Don’t,” he said.

The storeroom door closed behind her but she couldn’t turn around, didn’t want to see his ridiculously pretty face, gilded in gold and darkness, as he threatened to kill her. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

“Nothing,” he said, and his voice was almost gentle as his footsteps moved closer. She tensed, breathing gone shallow in her chest. Then he was past her and heading for the back door. “I told you, I came here for Katya. You weren’t supposed to be here. Wrong place, wrong time. That’s all.”

“Then just let me go,” she said. “Why are you doing this? I haven’t done anything to you, except maybe let your tea steep too long a couple of times. I won’t tell anyone.”

“Bad tea is a capital offense.” He offered a nonchalant wave with his words, a thread of humor warming the winter in his tone, and for a moment he was her version of normal. “But it’s more complicated than that. I need help, and unfortunately for both of us, you’re it.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Drive,” he said. “I need you to drive.”

“What?”

He turned towards her, expression tumbling into derision, but his usual grace collapsed beneath a stagger and he barely caught himself on a wire shelf stacked with oats. “Fuck.” His left arm, the one with the stain, didn’t seem to want to obey him as he tried to brace himself and reclaim equilibrium. “Get your keys. We’re leaving.”

“I don’t have a car,” she said, and hoped he wouldn’t shoot her. “I ride the bus to work.”

His lips thinned, already too pale from blood loss, and his eyes cut. “You drive the black civic in the parking lot. I’ve seen you leave. Lie to me again, and I’ll let you guess what happens.”

He’d found his feet, but she noticed the tremble in him as he struggled not to sway. Trey clenched her fists. “If I don’t help you, you’ll bleed out,” she said. “You won’t shoot me. You need me.”

“I do,” he said with an ease that surprised her. “I believe I’ve said that already, but needing you and not shooting you aren’t mutually exclusive. The longer you stand there, the less you’re worth to me.”

“What’s stopping me from saying no? From just letting you bleed out.” The words were not strong, the shaking rasp of terror too obvious, but she squeezed her hands until her palms stung and held her ground.

He smiled, all broken glass and cyanide, and lifted the gun. His right arm did not tremble. “You don’t have it in you,” he said. “To stand there and watch a person die. But, on the off chance I’m wrong, that doesn’t change the fact that I have a gun, and you - I presume - a will to live. Get the keys, or I pull the trigger. No more stalling.”

Warning sirens screamed inside her head, but he was right. She didn’t want to die, and despite the bravado, doubted she could watch it of him. But shit, she’d watched enough movies, read enough books, to know where this ended. Secondary locations. She wanted to laugh, let the horrifying reality of the last twenty minutes bubble up her throat until her ribs hurt and her breaths were sobs, but he’d shoot her before that; she was certain. She pointed to a cabinet beside the back door. “My purse is in there.”

He nodded, tilted the gun towards it. “Get it.”

Crossing the room, her fingers fumbled with the cabinet latch and her gaze strayed towards the back door, willing it to open. A desperate hope for someone else to walk through the door. For Katya to have forgotten something. “She wouldn’t help you,” Tala said, and she startled at the ease with which he’d read her. Too sharp eyes. Always too sharp.

“Another woman in love with you,” she said, a reckless anger taking hold in the face of hopelessness. She reached into the cabinet and jerked her purse free as he laughed. 

“Katya? Hardly, but she owes me, or more crassly I own her,” he said. “This business, her life here, I gave it to her. She won’t cross me, not even for you.”

Another spiteful reply tore at the seam of her lips, but she swallowed it. She dug her hand into the open top of her purse, fingers scrabbling against too many pens, lip gloss, and her wallet. The rough edge of her keys snagged a hangnail. Sucking in a sharp breath, she wrapped her hand around the offending object and tugged. Her key chain, a bulky thing to find in the black hole bottom of her bag, stuck on the inside pocket. She twisted it free, nearly dropping her purse. 

Tala waited by the door - leaned on the door - gun tapping idly against his thigh as he tracked her every muscle twitch and grimace. His eyes were mocking again. She scowled. “What?”

“Nothing at all, love.” He pushed away from the door, covered his stumble with an extravagant bow, and flourished his gun hand towards the exit. “Shall we?”

“It’s not like I have a choice.”

He bared his teeth in a red-tinged grin. “Of course you do,” he said. “Drive or doom us both. Your choice.”

_____

“Why is he at a bakery?”

“Maybe he needed a sugar boost after all the blood he left behind?”

“Will the two of you shut up?”

They crouched in an alley near the brick building their quarry had dragged himself through minutes earlier. Or rather, he crouched in the alley, while his two companions found other ways to make themselves useless. 

They’d tracked him from the warehouse, following a path of footprints and scattered blood. There was an arrogance in the audacity of the trail, and Garland's nerves grated. Even injured, his message was obvious. 

As the minutes ticked by, his two companions shifted and huffed, but he ignored them. They had orders. And then the back door opened. 

A girl stepped out, purse held tight to her body as she looked around the shadowed parking lot. She stiffened when another figure joined her, head twisting to glare at her partner. Garland’s jaw clenched at the sight of him.

“Who’s the girl?”

“Does it matter? Let’s finish this, already. It’s cold.”

“No,” Garland said.

“No?”

“Our orders were to follow him, not engage.”

“So… what? We report back that he stopped in for a donut and a date?”

Garland ground his teeth. “Does that girl look like she’s happy about what’s happening?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “We report back that he’s got some connection to this place, and that his high and mighty morals are breaking down.”

_____

He sprawled across her backseat, all blood covered elegance and bullet wounds. He smiled at her when she caught his eye in the rear-view mirror. She hated him. The streetlights, with their harsh yellow gleam, warmed his dolphin gray pallor, but his edges were dulling. “Take a left at the next light.”

Traffic slugged along in downtown at this hour of the night, but she’d still reached the edge of the city too soon. A left at the light led into darkness, the abandoned industrial plants and warehouses as empty and frozen as the eyes fixed on her back. She looked in the mirror again. He was still staring. “Where are we going?”

She’d asked him that question five times, to a smile, an eye roll, and then blatant disregard for the rest. This time he sighed. “Does it matter? It won’t change what happens when we get there.”

Ice slid through her stomach and butted up against her spine. It nestled there, patient. She turned left. The city disappeared behind them as the pavement rolled forward into endless night. It pressed against the windows, lapped at the watery beams of her headlights. She ran her tongue along the inside of a bone dry cheek and considered screaming, just for a variety to the silence.

Miles outside the city, hot breath fanned against her neck while the cold caress of metal traced the line of her cheekbone. She jumped, a squeak of protest tearing out of her, and jerked the wheel in panic. Musician’s fingers, long and slender, slid over her hand and corrected their course. They were rougher than she expected, and cold. “Careful,” he said. “It can be dangerous out here at night.”

“What are you doing?” She threw her elbow back out of instinct. It connected, and his grunt of pained surprise was almost worth the warm, tacky mess on her bare skin.

When he lifted his hand, the gun skimming close to her face, she expected retaliation, but he only pointed. They were approaching an alley, nestled between a wide, squat warehouse and what was once an office or apartment building. “Trying to give you directions,” he said with that drawling amusement she’d found appealing a few hours earlier. “Didn’t know you’d make such a fuss and nearly kill us, and so close to home.”

“Home?” She gave a second look to their surroundings, but they were no prettier. Battered brick buildings with broken windows stood as the front line to stockier warehouses, while the sentinel stacks of decommissioned plants loomed above them all. “Cozy.”

He arched a brow. “Judge a book by the cover type, are you?”

“Isn’t that what put me into this situation? Believing you were a pretty face.” She turned the car into the alley. “Instead of a monster.”

“Aw, you think I’m pretty,” he said, but his voice had gone flat. He leaned forward, close enough for his lips to brush the curve of her ear, for his breath to sweep the crevices of her terror. “Don’t call me a monster, love. Not until I’ve earned it. Stop here.”

He said it like she had a choice - your choice - but the alley dead ended at a brick wall. She pressed the brake, and the car jolted to a stop. Her hands clenched tight to the wheel. “Now what?”

“Now,” he said. “You should roll down the window before they break it.”

“Who -” a rhythmic, hollow tapping on her window woke the icy thread in her spine and spiked it straight to her heart. Outside, two figures had coalesced from the shadows. With a hip braced against her door, one knocked on the window with his gun, while the other stood a few paces back, arms crossed. 

“The window,” Tala said again. “Bryan’s not known for his patience.”

She reached for the window switch, but fear froze her fingers. She didn’t want to know their names. She didn’t want to turn her eyes up and see their faces. She didn’t want to die. 

The gun rapped once, hard, against the glass, and it cracked. In the backseat, Tala sighed. “If you make him shatter it, you’ll be next.”

“Does it matter?” She parroted back to him. “It won’t change what happens.”

She rolled down the window, anyway, and when Bryan’s gun swung to find her face, she couldn’t be bothered to flinch. Exhaustion swept through her like high tide, rushing in to steal her energy. 

“Who are you?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

The gun lowered a fraction from her face, and then Bryan ducked low to look at her. As he tracked his gaze over her black hair, pinned up for her shift but starting to fray, she studied him too. Russian, like Tala, their similarities ended with their accents, and even then his was rougher than Tala’s lilting cadence. While Tala was all smooth lines and polished porcelain, Bryan was chiseled granite. Moonlight skin, with storm cloud eyes and hair bathed in twilight, he was violence without vibrancy. When he smiled, the air in her lungs crackled beneath its chill. “You don’t know who you are?”

Before she could answer, and unconvinced of her capability to try, Tala sat forward. He rattled off a stream of words, their beat a rapid staccato she couldn’t understand. Bryan jerked, almost braining himself on her door frame, and found Tala with hurricane eyes. “Where the hell have you been?” Despite the rage clinging to every inch of him, Bryan’s voice went soft, delicate as a reaper’s scythe. “Kai’s ready to tear the city apart to find you.”

“Only Kai? I’m hurt.”

“Not yet, you’re not,” Bryan promised.

Tala grinned at that, shifted a bit more to present his bloodied coat. “I am, actually,” he said. 

Bryan bowed his head, muttered a single emphatic curse, and straightened. He glared at her. “Open the door.”

“Mine?” Her voice cracked.

His look was withering. “Yes, yours,” he said. “That asshole can drag himself out, but you’re a problem.”

“I don’t want to,” she said, and heard the stupidity in the words.

Bryan confirmed her suspicion with his disdain, and then he reached inside the open window, popped the lock, and opened the door himself. His large, calloused palm closed around her bicep, fingers biting bruises into tawny skin, and he looked over his shoulder. “Grab T, will you, Spence? If I do it, I’ll kill him.”

Those words did not comfort Trey as he dragged her out of the driver’s seat and into the biting winter wind. Standing in the alley, away from the constant clatter of the city, car horns and endless chatter, the quiet was oppressive. 

Bryan’s companion, a hulking giant of a man, grunted and moved past them. While Tala had kicked open the back door, he made no attempt to stand, and the other two exchanged an indecipherable look. The burly blond helped Tala to his feet, keeping a secure hold on his uninjured arm, and didn’t comment when Tala slumped most of his weight into Spencer’s support. “Where were you, Tal?” He asked, voice deceptively gentle for a man his size.

Trey watched him, for the first time more curious than scared. There was nothing poetic about his looks, no striking contrast or monochrome absence, and yet she saw something else. Something neither of the others, with their caricature charisma and sharp edges, possessed. He looked kind. 

Tala roused himself, shaking his head, blinking his eyes, and finding his feet. When he swayed, Spencer rested a casual hand on his back in support. “I met with Zolotov.”

Bryan swore. Even Spencer’s expression pinched. Bryan swore again. “I thought you’d decided that was a bad idea.”

“Kai decided it was a bad idea,” Tala said. “Luckily, Kai’s not in charge.”

“Have you told him that?” Bryan muttered, but shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Zolotov shot you? I’ll kill him.”

“He’s already dead,” Tala said. “Don’t give me that look; I didn’t kill him. They found the meeting out, or it was a trap and they betrayed Zolotov. Either way, his goons crashed the party, killed Zolotov, clipped me. It’s a mess.”

“Clipped you?” Bryan said with a pointed look at the once white coat. “So, meeting Zolotov was a bad idea.” 

Tala scowled, but then he staggered, his hand flying up to press into his temple. “Fuck,” he said. “It’s so loud.”

Spencer grabbed him, but the color had fled his face. Even the bright flush of wind-bitten cheeks seemed lackluster. Bryan, his grip tight on her arm, also stilled at the words. He barely seemed to breathe. Another look, this time concerned, passed between the two upright Russians. “You still with us, Tal?” Spencer said, a quiet urgency in his tone. 

A couple heartbeats passed, and even beyond her fear and confusion, Trey felt the press of rising tension, of panic, and then Tala inhaled a shuddering breath. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I’m here, but there’s more I need to tell you.” 

“Tell us the rest later,” Spencer said. “Right now, you need help.”

“I know, but you need to stay sharp.” Tala’s head slumped against Spencer’s shoulder, eyes already half closed, long lashes casting spiderweb shadows on his cheeks. “Tell Kai what’s going on.”

Bryan’s jaw clenched, and he tilted his head towards Spencer. “You can have that honor. Hiwatari’s office is closer to the Doc, anyway. I’ll deal with the girl, but tell Ian to get his ass down here. He’ll need to strip the car while I deal with the rest.”

Tala’s eyes fluttered open, while Trey’s heart sank into her stomach. This was it. She was going to die in a grungy back alley, and the only person likely to notice before week’s end was indebted to the man responsible. As Bryan tugged on her arm to get her moving, Tala’s faint voice drifted to them. “No.”

Bryan stopped. Trey stopped. Spencer nearly had Tala through the door, but he also paused. Bracing his good arm against Spencer, Tala leveled a look at his enforcer, and beneath the glaze of pain and fading consciousness, was the unrelenting force of his storm. “No,” he repeated. “She stays.”

“Stays?” Bryan said. “What the hell am I supposed to do with her then?”

Tala shrugged and dropped back into Spencer, allowing the blond to shuffle him forward once more. “I dunno,” he called back, words slurring. “Figure it out, but no one hurts her. That’s an order.”

The door closed behind Spencer, which did nothing to quell Bryan’s creative litany of insults directed at the redhead. Trey held her breath, channeling the spirit of a statue, and hoped he’d forget her in his anger. She just needed a second. The driver’s door was still open, keys hanging in the ignition. If she could slip away, but - no.

She’d have better luck escaping a bear trap. His ashen gaze landed on her, and a chasm of fear beat in place of her heart. “Shit,” he said. “What the hell am I going to do with you?”

He wasn’t actually asking her; she knew that, and yet ‘let me go’ still tumbled to the tip of her tongue. Her lips clamped shut on the words. Instead, she risked a different angle. “Why am I here? Where is here? What does he even want from me?”

With a shrug, Bryan started for the same door Spencer and Tala had entered, dragging her in his wake. “No idea,” he said, ignoring the second question. “You’ll have to ask him.”

“I don’t even know him,” she said, stumbling to keep up with his long strides across the cracked, uneven pavement.

Bryan halted, and she barely managed to not face-plant into his broad back. He looked over his shoulder. “Where did he even find you?”

“My job,” she said. “He barged in the back door. Katya -”

“Katya? Of course,” Bryan interrupted, and then he was swearing again. “Fuck. You really don’t have any idea what he’s dragged you into, do you?”

“No, and I just want to go home.” He didn’t seem like the sympathetic type, but his eyes had lost a layer of contempt with her explanation. Maybe.

“Not going to happen,” he said, snuffing her sputtering hope before it sparked. He started forward again, his next words muttered more to himself than her. “Christ, T, this is bad, even for you. It would have been kinder to let me shoot her.”

“I can hear you.”

“I don’t care.” 

He released her arm in exchange for a shove between her shoulder blades. She stumbled over the threshold and into the warehouse, while he paused to say something to a man standing guard inside, pointing back towards the alley. Beyond the door, her world changed. 

Not that the warehouse was particularly harrowing, or even strange, though nicer than she would have guessed. But she felt it, like a single, pitted pop, a bursting bubble in the center of her. The difference crawled up her legs from the wide cherry floor planks. Its weight dragged. The gravity of an unfamiliar orbit spilled over her from the yellow light of the chandelier. People were scattered about the space, and under their baleful eyes, their echoing, hollow silence, she realized she was alone. 

Not a chosen loneliness, an agreed upon desertion from the life of her childhood. A packed bag in the night, escaping on the new moon so not even it bore witness to her flight. Nor was it the forlorn isolation of an empty apartment, a frozen dinner Friday night. It was the absolute aloneness of an unmarked grave. Abandoned and forgotten, or in her case, never even known at all.

“Bryan.”

Standing behind the long mahogany bar, holding a white linen cloth and polishing the dark wood to a gleam, was a woman glaring daggers at her - no, not at her. Bryan. And she looked like the ocean. 

Waves of deep sea blue hair were piled on top of her head in an elegant twist, secured with chopsticks. A few loose strands framed her face, like lapping water to the foam green of her eyes. She was beautiful, and judging by the crescent curve of her violet berry lips, pissed. 

She dropped the cloth and rounded the bar. Bryan stopped like he’d hit a wall. “Mariam.”

“Who is this? She looks terrified.”

Bryan shrugged, his primary method of communication, and crossed his arms. “Your new responsibility.”

Mariam cocked a hip, resting her hand on it, and arched a brow. “Well, I wasn’t going to leave her with you, but that didn’t answer my question.”

“She came in with Tala, and he’s put a no harm order out on her,” Bryan said.

“And you immediately lost interest. Typical.” Mariam flicked a loose chunk of hair out of her eyes and then blinked at Bryan as if surprised to see him still standing there. “Goodbye, then.”

Bryan’s lips curled into a sneer, but his pale eyes glittered. Heat and anticipation burned at the edges of his permafrost persona, and Mariam’s mouth curved. Trey stood between them, feeling like a countdown, and then Bryan turned on his heel and stalked back towards the door. 

Mariam blew out a breath and focused on Trey. Her eyes scoured over the girl, starting at Trey’s toes. From the sensible, non-slip shoes, up the black trousers stained with coffee and whipped cream, snagging on the ill-fitting uniform blouse and bare arms, Mariam’s expression was bleak. 

She stepped forward and pushed a hunk of wild black hair out of Trey’s face, tucking it behind her ear to tame it, and then met her eyes. Their greens clashed, Trey’s a darker shade, like the forest on the cusp of night, and brimming with nightmares. “You poor thing,” Mariam said. “What’s your name?”

“Trey.” 

Trey looked around, struggling to process the last five minutes: the constant change of hands apparently responsible for her, that they hadn’t shot her yet. The room she stood in was more clubhouse than broken down warehouse, the bar and pool table juxtaposed with a sitting area to the right. The palimpsest didn’t help organize her spinning thoughts. 

She turned back to Mariam, relieved to be out from under the feral eyes of Bryan, but wondering what new threat this woman posed. However kind she seemed, she was still one of them - whoever they were. Trey stepped back, giving herself some distance. “What now?” she asked, with little hope for an answer.

“Now, I’d like to take you upstairs so you can clean up, and get some rest.” Trey waited for hands to clamp around her arms or shoulder, and drag her to the next destination, but Mariam just held out her hand in offer. “Or, I can pour you a drink and get you some food, if you’d rather.”

Trey stared at her. “You’re giving me a choice?” And she hated how his voice mocked her.

Mariam’s brow scrunched, her lips pinching in annoyance. “You’ve had a hell of night, haven’t you?” She shook her head. “Sorry, the guys can forget themselves sometimes, especially when one of them gets hurt. Especially when that one of them is Tala. They mean well.”

Trey didn’t mean to laugh, but the caustic bitterness burned through her lips and escaped, anyway. “Mean well?” she said. “I guess I must have missed that with all the guns they pointed at my face.”

Mariam’s offered hand dropped; the corners of her lips followed it. “Wait, what?” she asked. “Bryan said you came in with Tala? I assumed - how exactly did you end up involved with him?”

Trey opened her mouth to answer, to protest that she’d done nothing to ‘end up involved’ with the red-haired Russian, but Mariam was already shaking her head. It was late, and with the excitement of Tala’s disappearance resolved, most people had gone home, but a few stragglers remained, listening. “Never mind, not here.” Mariam offered her hand again. “Let’s head upstairs and you can tell me what happened, yeah?”

“Sure.” Trey shrugged at the non-options, but still didn’t take Mariam’s hand. She was tired of being touched, of the not-so-subtle restraint under the guise of kindness. “Lead the way.”

_____

Kai was tired of being used to the medical wing. In the last several months, he’d stood in the blank white hallway observing through a window with a disturbing amount of frequency, always for the same person. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he glanced at the blond beside him. “What’d he do this time?”

Spencer’s eyes remained fixed on the steady spikes of the heart monitor. “He wasn’t in a state to say much,” he said. “Met with Zolotov, got ambushed, and showed up like this. Mentioned Zolotov was killed.”

Kai shook his head, but the red flush creeping up his neck betrayed his temper. Part of this was his fault. He’d known, from the moment Zolotov’s offer landed, that Tala couldn’t let it rest, but like an idiot, he’d trusted Tala to be honest with him. “Great.” Kai dragged his fingers through his hair. “Was it him?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

Kai stared at the blank white wall and considered the pros and cons of putting his fist through it. He clenched his fingers tighter and turned back to the window. The doctor moved about the room, but Kai focused on the still figure on the bed. Every few seconds, Tala blinked, indicating he was awake if not all together aware. “How was he?” he asked, finally.

Seconds ticked by in silence, and Kai’s heart threatened to drop into his stomach. Spencer sighed. “There was a moment, but it passed,” he said. “Mostly, seemed to be him driving.”

“Mostly?”

Spencer just shook his head. “There’s another thing,” he said.

Kai laughed and tilted his head back, blinked up at the ceiling. “Of course there is,” he said. “Jesus.”

“A girl brought him back here,” Spencer said, though his grim expression softened in the face of Kai’s exasperation. “I got the impression it wasn’t exactly… willingly.”

Kai’s head lowered from staring at the ceiling, a slow, rusty clockwork, movement. “What?” He held up his hand when Spencer opened his mouth to answer. He let the words settle and took a breath. “Are you saying Tala kidnapped someone?”

“Maybe?” Spencer shrugged again. “There wasn’t a lot of time to ask questions. Bryan took her.”

Those words tumbled a bucket of ice over Kai’s head, and his eyes narrowed on Spencer. “Bryan took her where, exactly?” he asked, not entirely certain he wanted the answer. An unknown girl having the whereabouts of their complex was a problem. Kai knew how Bryan solved problems. 

“I’m not sure where they went,” Spencer said, and then seeing the exact path Kai’s mind traveled, added, “but he didn’t hurt her. Tala ordered that much.”

“Oh, how gracious of him,” Kai said, the earlier guilt for his part in Tala’s actions burning away beneath a fury solely directed at the redhead, and then he closed his eyes and took a breath. Spencer wasn’t sure about the details. Though it seemed unlikely, maybe there was an alternate explanation.

The door beside them opened, drawing Kai’s attention, as the doctor emerged. He was a middle-aged man, whose medical background but disgraced reputation had made him easy to buy. “How is he?” Spencer asked.

“He was lucky,” the man said, glancing down at his clipboard. “The bullet was a small caliber and mostly hit muscle. I stitched him up, and he shouldn’t use that arm for a bit, but it’ll heal. Blood loss was the most concerning issue, but I’ve got him on a second transfusion.”

“So, he’ll be all right?”

The doctor nodded. “As long as he takes it easy for a while, he’ll be fine.”

Kai frowned. Expecting Tala to ‘take it easy’ was like asking a cat to go willingly into a bath, but he’d deal with it. “Can I talk to him?” Kai asked.

The doctor looked over his shoulder towards the observation window, and then back to Kai. “You can try,” he said. “He’s not very alert, and I gave him something for the pain. He should rest soon.”

“I won’t take long,” Kai said.

Kai brushed past the doctor, leaving Spencer to handle any necessary instructions, and walked into the room. He slid the door closed behind him and let the steady beep of machines wash over him. Too many times he’d walked into this room, and the initial terror always waited to greet him like an old friend. 

“You look like crap, Hiwatari.”

Kai’s head snapped up, focusing on the wane figure in the bed, and found those clever blue eyes blinking at him with sluggish amusement. The white sheets washed out Tala’s pallid complexion, but he was smiling. Kai didn’t return it. He tugged on the back of a visitor’s chair and dropped into it. “You’re one to talk.”

“Oh, come on. I look good even on my bad days.” And this had been one of his worst in recent memory. 

Tala lay bare-chested beneath the sheet, an extra blanket adding a colorful gray accompaniment to his bloodless skin. Two drips hung from the metal stand on his left, one needle buried in the back of his hand, while the other pierced his inner elbow. Fresh, white bandages peeked above the blanket, wrapping the wound in his shoulder and securing the cracked bones in his chest. Bruises painted him like an unwilling canvas beneath the covers. 

Tala sighed, then winced at the bright flare of protest in his ribs, and Kai’s glare sharpened. “What the hell were you thinking, T?”

“I know you want to yell at me,” Tala said, his eyes sliding closed. “And, I know I deserve it, but can it wait until my head’s not pounding?”

Kai clenched his fingers around the arms of the chair and swallowed the tirade clawing up his throat. Yelling at Tala accomplished nothing productive, and despite his teasing facade, the pinched lines of pain on his face went a long way to twisting Kai’s anger into concern. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Tala laughed, and then coughed, choking out a curse in between for good measure. He curled his right arm around his battered torso, cracking open one eye as he willed the pain to dull. “You made your opinion on a Zolotov truce transparently clear.”

“I didn’t agree with you,” Kai said. “But I would have gone with you. How do you not know that by now?”

“I do know it.” Tala uncurled his arm and eased back into the too thin pillow behind his head. “It’s why I didn’t ask.”

“What?”

Tala flicked his gaze back towards the ceiling, but Kai saw the acerbic slice of amusement in them. “You were right,” Tala said. “It was dangerous, and stupid. I did know that, but I had to try. Figured, if the worst happened, they’d need you. Better I didn’t get us both killed.”

“You -” Kai broke himself off, caught between wanting to throttle Tala or walk away from him, and for a brief moment he regretted not dragging Spencer into the room with him. The blond was better at handling Tala when everyone else wanted to kill him. With another deep exhale, Kai settled on shaking his head. “This doesn’t work without you, dumbass.”

“And, I’m still here,” Tala pointed out. “With an additional air hole, but alive.”

“By luck more than sense,” Kai said.

“The title of my autobiography,” Tala said, a slur edging the last word.

Knowing it limited his time, with the pain meds kicking in, Kai braced himself for his next statement. “We need to talk about the girl.”

Muscles flinched in Tala’s jaw, and he kept his eyes rooted towards the ceiling. “What about her?” he asked, all hints of humor fleeing beneath the flatness. 

Kai closed his eyes. He hadn’t been optimistic to an alternate explanation, but Tala’s reaction told him enough. Blank irritation always slotted into place when roots of guilt buried in the redhead. “What did you do, Tala?”

“What I had to,” Tala said, but he refused to look at Kai.

“Enlightening.”

Tala shot him an annoyed look, but the redhead’s twisted humor tempered it. “It wasn’t supposed to be her,” he said eventually, and his lips quirked. “Not that it matters, I guess.”

“Who is she?”

“Some girl,” he said.

Kai remained silent and Tala blew out a breath, then winced as his ribs ached. “Her name is Trey,” he said. “She’s a barista at Katya’s. Obviously, I wasn’t looking for her, but she was the only one around and I was low on options.”

“So, she’s clueless?”

“About all of this? Yeah. Makes a damn good cup of tea though.” Tala’s voice dipped, fading, his blue eyes fluttering as the drugs pulsed through his system. “Bryan didn’t kill her, did he?”

“According to Spencer, no.” Kai had yet to convince himself Bryan had listened. Threats to any of them, but Tala in particular, were squashed without quarter. Bryan had ‘disobeyed’ Tala before, in the interest of what he deemed the greater good. 

“That’s good.”

Tala’s eyes drifted closed, and his breath evened out as he exhaled the words. Kai sighed and leaned back in his chair. That hadn’t been all the information he’d wanted, but it confirmed his fears. Somewhere in the building, under the no doubt nurturing care of Bryan, was an innocent girl whose life they had just ruined, and Kai needed to find her and tell her. He dragged his fingers through already mused hair and huffed a laugh. What the fuck had he been thinking, coming back to this? With another shake of his head, Kai pushed out of the chair and went to find Bryan, and hopefully a drink.

_____

Mariam led her through a pair of double doors near the back of the open clubhouse, and harsh overhead fluorescents washed away the burnished light of the chandelier. The door clicked shut and muted the low rumble of conversation, dowsing her in the same oppressive silence of the alley. Trey’s breath hitched. “Where are we going?”

Mariam looked over her shoulder, and paused at Trey’s wide, panicked eyes. “Just somewhere quiet, and private. It’ll just be the two of us, and we can talk.”

“I don’t even know you,” Trey said, like it mattered.

Mariam attempted a comforting smile. “I know, but I promise I just want to help you. You don’t have to trust me yet.”

She didn’t wait for Trey to answer, which was good because Trey had nothing to offer. They continued down the hallway until it ended at another door. A set of stairs waited beyond, and Trey followed Mariam up two floors before they stepped through another door.

Plush wine colored carpet and cream walls with crown molding stood at odds with the utilitarian spaces they’d just left. “These are the living quarters,” Mariam said as she walked, heels quiet on the carpet. 

“People live here?”

“Just the guys, really, and me. There are a couple spare apartments for the security rotation, and Kai and Tala split the penthouse on the top floor.” Mariam stopped at a door and pulled a key card from her pocket. She scanned it and a small metal panel slid back from the handle. Mariam pressed her thumb to it, still talking. “Usually, those two alternate overnight weeks here. Tala has a penthouse in downtown where everyone crashes if they’re not working, and Kai has a house with his girlfriend outside the city.”

The lock buzzed and hummed, then a red light turned green, and Mariam twisted the handle. She held the door open for Trey and waved her into the room beyond.

Winter spruce mingled with sea spray, giving the open air of the loft a sharp, clean smell that grounded itself in earthy wood. The back wall was exposed brick, an original remnant of the warehouse, and tall windows looked out on the charming view of a decommissioned textile plant. Metal piping snaked up the wall and into the ceiling, driving home the industrial style.

In front of her, rich leather furniture, plush with stuffing, was angled towards a television, and added warmth to the stark glass and metal accoutrements. Trey shook her head. These people were a poet’s wet dream, a collection of flawlessly attractive conundrums. 

The ongoing urge to scream, to break something, rattled against her chest, and then Mariam swept in behind her. She kicked the door closed as she cast aside her burgundy blazer. Its gold buttons clattered against the brushed steel dining table and slid to the floor. Mariam stared at the rumpled cloth and frowned. “Damn. I was aiming for the chair.” She shrugged and headed for the galley kitchen, leaving the jacket where it’d landed. “Bryan always makes it look so easy.”

At his name, Trey flinched, a fresh horror already painted in her memory. The unflinching ferocity in his gaze as he casually offered to kill her had burrowed its own special spot into the front line of her trauma. She blinked it away and noticed his coat. Flung over the back of a chair was a dove gray parka, the hood and cuffs lined with white fur. The scent, the coat. She looked around and spotted heavy black boots by the door, and it clicked. “Is this Bryan’s apartment?” 

The words choked out of her, half strangled with the breath they stole to make them. Mariam looked up, her graceful fingers wrapped around the handle of a steel kettle. “It’s our apartment,” she said, and set the kettle over the gas burner. “Don’t worry, with everything going on, he’ll be out all night.”

Trey’s expression didn’t ease under the reassurance. Mariam sighed, placing the kettle over the flame on the stove, and then approached the girl still clinging to herself by the doorway. “Bryan makes an unflattering first impression.” She paused, her brow scrunching as she pursed her lips. “Well, honestly, he makes a poor second, third, forth… you get the point, but he’s worth getting to know. All of them are.”

The hysteria from earlier bubbled to the surface at the idea that any of them were less than monsters, but Trey swallowed it. “Sure,” she said. “Beneath the death threats, kidnapping, and guns, I’m sure they’re all sweet as peaches.”

“Right.” Mariam motioned to the extravagant couch in offer. “You said something similar downstairs. What exactly happened between you and Tala?”

Trey crossed her arms, reflexive and defensive, and didn’t sit down. “Nothing happened between us,” she said. “Everyone keeps talking like I wanted anything to do with this, whatever this even is. Like I had a choice.” 

Your choice. She dug her fingers into the bare skin of her arms. There’d been a point in Trey’s life, when she still believed in fairy tales, that she’d dreamed of being rescued. Imagined a prince, heroic and brave, who would slay her dragon and sweep her away to a new and different life. Then she’d grown up, packed her own bag, and escaped while the dragon slept. Bad luck, Tala had said, and she wanted to laugh. How typical of her life to deliver her prince, deranged and detestable, and a decade too late. 

Mariam’s frown deepened as unsettling pieces began to fit together. “How do you know Tala?” She asked and then reconsidered. “Or did you know Tala, before tonight?”

“Yes. No. I mean, he’s not a total stranger, but I don’t know him.” Trey released the death grip on her arms to reach up and unclip her haphazard ponytail. She dragged her fingers through her thick waves of black hair before twisting them up again. “It’s complicated.”

“I’m getting that,” Mariam said, followed by a muttered, “most things with Tala usually are.”

The kettle whistled on the stove, and Mariam pointed to the couch again. “Please, sit down. You look like you’re going to keel over.” She hurried back into the kitchen and scooped the kettle free of the heat, flipping the burner off with a flick of her wrist. “Let me finish this tea, and I promise we’ll sort this out, okay?”

“What’s to sort out?” Trey tugged on a chunk of hair already vying for escape from her hair clip, but allowed herself to sit on the sofa. She closed her eyes as she sank into the cushion. “They made it pretty clear I’m not going anywhere.”

“Kai might have a different opinion once he finds out what’s happened.” Mariam pressed her nail against the silver infuser bobbing in her mug, glancing at the clock every few seconds as she waited for their drinks to steep.

“Who is this Kai person everyone keeps talking about?” Trey asked, eyes still closed as the heavy weight of the night settled across her. “Should I worry he’ll overrule Tala’s ‘no harm’ order, and then I’m dead again?”

“No,” Mariam said, scooping the infusers from the tea and tossing them in the sink. “If Tala says you’re safe, then you’re safe. He’s the boss of this operation.”

Mariam offered Trey a mug as she returned to the couch, claiming the opposite end. She tucked her feet beneath her and took a sip, but it did nothing to hide her grin. “Kai is just the boss of Tala. Unofficially.” 

When Trey continued to stare blankly into her tea, Mariam chewed on her lip. “All right, let’s start simple. Where did you first meet Tala?”

“He’s a regular at my job,” Trey said.

“Where do you work?”

“I’m a barista at Katya’s Cakes & Coffee.” Trey lifted her mug and finally took a sip. The tea scalded, but she barely noticed. “I mean, I’ve talked to Tala. He usually chatted and flirted while waiting for his order, but never about anything.”

Mariam cradled her mug between both hands and wondered if the burn spreading through her was from tea or rage. “Yeah,” she said after a pause. “Tala’s good at talking a lot but never saying anything.” She looked over her mug at Trey. “That’s it? That’s your connection with Tala? Making his coffee order?”

“Well, tea,” Trey said. Mariam arched a brow and Trey flushed, but specified. “Tala orders tea, not coffee - not that it matters. But yeah, my extensive knowledge of him before tonight was that he prefers black tea to herbal, unless he’s having a bad day, and then splurges for a Chai latte. And that he’d kill a man for a raspberry scone.”

“He’s probably killed for less,” Mariam said, and then pressed her lips together like she hadn’t intended to say the words out loud. “Fuck.” Mariam rubbed at her temple with a knuckle. “How did you end up here then? What happened tonight?”

Trey shrugged. She traced the pattern on her mug with a finger, wondering how to answer a question she hadn’t figured out yet. “I stayed late,” she said. “Katya usually does inventory on Thursday, but her son got sick, so I volunteered. Figured I could use the overtime. Tala showed up expecting her, found me instead, and after brandishing a convincing argument with the business end of a .38, made me bring him here. You know the rest.”

“Fuck,” Mariam said again. And, “Bastard. Stupid, arrogant, reckless bastard.”

Trey shrugged again. “Sure.”

Mariam set her tea aside and studied Trey. There was a disconnect in her expression, an empty glaze across Trey’s dark green eyes. Mariam frowned. “All things considered, you seem pretty calm about everything.”

“Do I?” Trey slipped both hands around her mug, but its heat failed to warm her spreading numbness. “Must be the shock.”

Mariam’s eyes narrowed on her, but she said nothing, and Trey blew out a frustrated breath. “What do want me to say?” She threw up the hand not holding her tea; it sloshed on her pants, anyway. “I’m not calm. I want to yell and curse. Cry my eyes out. I want to punch Tala in his stupid perfect face, but more than anything I want to turn the clock back a few hours and go home.”

Trey’s fingers clenched around the mug and she bowed her head, blinking hard to stall the pressure behind her eyes. “An extra ten bucks of overtime wasn’t worth this, but here I am, and there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it.”

Mariam winced, regretting her pushiness. She needed to get out more. Bryan’s stubborn aversion to tact was rubbing off on her. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t think. Of course you’re not all right with things.”

“It’s not your fault.” Trey leaned her head against the back of the couch, the last of her energy leeched by the burst of temper. “I should probably just be grateful you haven’t brandished a weapon at me, yet.”

Mariam ran her tongue across the back of her teeth, at a rare loss for words. She knew the boys, and Tala was reckless but not stupid. Whatever his reasons, she knew he had them, but she also couldn’t defend him. He’d kidnapped an innocent girl. With a sigh, Mariam stood and retrieved her mug. She’d almost reached the kitchen when Trey broke the silence. “So, now what?” She sounded defeated. “I just sit around and wait until Kai the mysterious shows up to interrogate me?”

“Kai the mysterious?” Mariam laughed, depositing her mug in the sink beside the abandoned infusers. “Please, don’t call him that to his face. He might like it. He’ll probably still be awhile, if I had to guess.”

Tapping her nails against the counter, Mariam considered their options, cycling through her own favorite comforts for inspiration. “How about a hot shower?” She asked, coming around the counter again. “It always makes me feel better, and I’m sure I’ve got something more comfortable you can change into while we wait.”

Trey’s misery derailed at the offer, and she barely stifled a groan. A few minutes of privacy under the pound of scalding water sounded amazing, but her eyelids weighed a thousand pounds and the couch cushions had practically adopted her. A shadow blotted out the overhead light, and Trey dragged her eyes open. Mariam held out both her hands. “Come on, you’ll feel better after a shower,” she said. “If Hiwatari still hasn’t shown by then, you can crash out and I’ll tell him he can wait.”

Trey considered a few seconds longer, but the temptation of unsupervised peace wooed her from the cushions, and she took Mariam’s hands. Once she was on her feet, Mariam headed for the staircase tucked behind a chair. The steps were dark wood with a wrought-iron railing, and Trey tried not to envision tumbling over it. The upstairs loft was an open space that covered half the floor below. It looked out over a combination office and bar area, with the same depressing scenic view. 

“Here we go,” Mariam said, drawing Trey’s attention back to where her host was digging through a dresser on the far side of the bed.

When she straightened, Mariam presented a pair of red and black checkered pajama pants. “They’re not the prettiest, but they’re comfortable.”

Trey caught them as Mariam tossed them over. The familiar touch of soft flannel fanned the ache for her own apartment and worn pajamas. She draped them over her arm, but before she could thank Mariam, the woman was abandoning the dresser and heading through a narrow door in the corner. Mariam emerged from the small, but neatly arranged, closet a few moments later and completed Trey’s wardrobe haul with a simple black t-shirt and fleece-lined hoodie. “They might be a little big, but they should do the trick for now, and keep you warm enough,” Mariam said over her shoulder as she headed towards another door set in the middle of the wall. “Kai’s the only one with any sense to turn on the heat, so it can get pretty cold around here.” 

Trey followed Mariam towards the door, her borrowed clothes tucked between her arm and her chest, but she paused as her gaze snagged on the closest nightstand. The items were arranged too precisely to be cluttered, but there wasn’t much empty space. The book on the bedside table had a title she couldn’t read, but the letters looked similar to some documents she’d seen around Katya’s office. A pair of square, black-framed reading glasses rested to the side of it. Above the glasses was an old watch with a cracked face and leather band, and at the top of everything else, was a knife. A sculpted wood handle, smoothed and polished with obvious wear on the grip, balanced the serrated hunting blade. Trey swallowed and hurried after Mariam. 

“You really live with Bryan?” she asked as she stepped into the bathroom.

Mariam blinked up at her from where she knelt, rummaging through the bathroom cabinet. “We live together, yeah. Why?”

The vast wasteland of his gaze, broken only by the violence that struck like lightning in a blizzard, shivered from Trey’s memory down her spine. She shook her head. “Nevermind. It’s not my business.”

Understanding flashed across Mariam’s face and she laughed, returning to pursue whatever had her scrounging under the sink. “Because of our little exchange downstairs?”

No. That hadn’t been it, but she clung to the excuse. It seemed more polite than questioning Bryan’s sanity, and Mariam’s. “You didn’t exactly seem to get along.”

“We have our days.” Something thunked beneath the cabinet and Mariam cursed. “He gets in a mood whenever Tala does something reckless, which is often - though this time seems to be a particularly special case of dumbassery - and I’m not interested in putting up with him when he acts like an ass. He’ll cool his head tonight, and we’ll be fine.”

An exclamation of victory echoed from the depths of the bathroom cabinet, and then Mariam braced her hand on the counter and hopped to her feet. In her other hand, she waved a small square container at Trey. Inside the clear plastic were several balls of white marbled with gold. Trey arched an eyebrow. “Bath bombs?”

“I thought they might be nice, if you wanted to relax,” Mariam said. “I’ll just leave them on the counter.”

Trey eyed the bath bombs. It didn’t sound like the worst idea, and the tub was a deep, oval claw foot that promised luxury. Until she fell asleep and drowned. Trey focused on the shower, black and navy tile with a frosted glass sliding door, and deemed it the safe option. “Thanks, but I think I’ll just wash off tonight.”

Mariam nodded. “Sure thing.” She pointed to a metal bar on the wall, hung with two navy towels. “Those are yours. Also, you might want to turn the water on and let it run for a minute. Old pipes and all, it takes a bit for things to heat up. Shampoo and everything is already in there, and I put a washcloth on the rack for you. Seriously, help yourself to anything, and I’ll be downstairs if you need something. No rush.”

The trembling gripped her as the door clicked shut, and Trey bit down on her lip until she tasted blood. Mariam’s footsteps descended the stairs, and Trey dropped into a crouch, chest heaving with gasps. She pressed a shaking hand to her mouth and swallowed the sob, afraid it’d escape as a scream, but tears fought their way out of her clenched eyes. She gave herself thirty seconds, and then she dug her nails into her palms and stood up. 

Tears had never helped her in the past, and they wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference now. Taking Mariam’s advice, she reached in and turned on the water, letting it run while she scrubbed at the few stubborn droplets still dripping down her cheeks. When the glass steamed, she stripped off her work uniform and stepped under the stinging spray. The water washed over her, and she closed her eyes, imagining for just a moment that she’d made it home.

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it this far, thank you! Let me know what you think. Also, the general playlist (and fic / chapter titles) are basically the Rise Against discography, if anyone is curious. Also, forgive any typos / mistakes, I got infinitely tired of staring at this.


End file.
